In spite of the doctor’s predictions and consignment of that girl to Georgia, or some warmer place, it had reached her at last.  She did not see it at first, so fast her tears fell, but just as her scissors were raised to cut the pattern her eyes fell on the spot headed, “A Curious Advertisement,” and suspending her operations for a moment, she read it through, a feeling rising in her heart that it was surely an answer to her own advertisement, sent forth months ago, with tearful prayers that it might be successful.

At the table she heard ’Lina say that Claib was going to town that afternoon, and thinking within herself.  “If a letter were only ready, he could take it with him,” she asked permission to write a few lines.  It would not take her long, she said, and she could work the later to make it up.

’Lina did not refuse, and in a few moments Adah penned a note to A.E.R.

“It’s an answer to an advertisement for a governess or waiting maid,” she said, as ’Lina glanced carelessly at the superscription.

“It will do no harm, or good either, I imagine,” was ’Lina’a reply, and placing the letter in her pocket, she was about returning to her mother, when she spied Ellen Tiffton dismounting at the gate.

Ellen was delighted to see ’Lina, and ’Lina was delighted to see Ellen, leading her at once into the work-room, where Adah sat by the window, busy on the bertha, and looking up quietly when Ellen entered, as if half expecting an introduction.  But ’Lina did not deign to notice her, save in an aside to Ellen, to whom she whispered softly: 

“That girl, Adah, you know.”

Reared in a country where the menials all were black, Ellen knew no such marked distinction among the whites, and walked directly up to Adah, whose face seemed to puzzle her.  It was the first time they had met, and Adah turned crimson beneath the close scrutiny to which she was subjected.  Noticing her embarrassment, and wishing to relieve it, Ellen addressed to her some trivial remark concerning her work, complimenting her skill, asking some questions about Willie, whom she had seen, and then leaving her for a girlish conversation with ’Lina, to whom she related many particulars of her visit to New York.  Particularly was she pleased with a certain Dr. Richards, who was described as the most elegant young man at the hotel.

“There was something queer about him too,” she said, in a lower tone, and drawing nearer to ’Lina.  “He seemed so absent-like, as if there were something on his mind—­some heart trouble, you know; but that only made him more interesting; and such an adventure as I had, too.  Send her out of the room, please,” and nodding toward Adah, Ellen spoke beneath her breath.

’Lina comprehended her meaning, and turning to Adah said rather haughtily: 

“It’s cool on the west end of the piazza.  You may go and sit there a while.”

With a heightened color at being thus addressed before a stranger, Adah withdrew, and Ellen continued: